


We Look to You

by WriteMeToHell



Category: The Prom - Sklar/Beguelin/Martin
Genre: Angst, Bullying, F/F, Gen, Homophobia, Pre-Canon, Tom Hawkins is a stand up guy and we need to acknowledge that more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21825484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteMeToHell/pseuds/WriteMeToHell
Summary: Tom Hawkins had three opportunities to reach out to Emma Nolan. Two where he chose to look the other way.The third time was the one that mattered.
Relationships: Emma Nolan & Mr. Hawkins
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	We Look to You

**Author's Note:**

> Never got to see The Prom on Broadway. Still desperately looking for a bootleg with Michael Potts. I'm basing most of my info off of the cast album and and the wikipedia page. Big shout out to tumblr users @true-bean and @wisdomsblogs for letting me know about Mrs. Greene's first name. 
> 
> I'm new here, comments give me life <3 <3 <3

The first time the name Emma Nolan crossed Tom Hawkins’ radar, it was through one particularly conspicuous email.

 _“All future school reports regarding Emma Nolan (Junior) will now be transferred to Elizabeth Nolan (relation: grandmother), the student in question’s new legal guardian._ ”

It didn’t take a man with twenty years of public school experience to see some blatant gaps within the message. But when he asked around the office for further details, the school counselor had simply shrugged.

“The Nolan’s are very private people. I don’t believe there’s any abuse going on, if there was I’d report it. But there is… I don’t know the right word… a quarrel in the family, I suppose? Emma seemed very quiet, but she’s always been like that. Her grandmother though,” And she shook her head and gave a low whistle. “Remind me to never get on the bad side of Betsy Nolan. That woman is a spitfire. She kept muttering about her ‘no good bastard of a son’. But when I tried to pry in no one would say anything.”

“And the parents?”

She gave a half hearted shrug. “Won’t return my calls or emails. It’s like they never even had a daughter in the first place. Sad really, she’s one of the better kids on my caseload.”

If there was one thing that endlessly frustrated Tom since becoming principal of James Madison High (and he had an alphabetized, color coordinated list), it was how increasingly impersonal his relationship with the students was becoming. The reason why he got into this career in the first place was to reach out to kids on a personal level, to make them feel as important and listened to. The he’d wanted to feel to back when he was a lonely teenage boy who spent Friday nights comparing Sondheim albums while everyone else went to football games. The fact that he was now running a school with no viable arts program was an irony that was never lost on him.

He knew should look into this further. It would be the right thing to do.

But then feedback on the latest set of standardized tests came in, and the PTA sent an email arguing that the school’s annual Halloween festival was promoting witchcraft. Not to mention the meeting with the teachers’ union about budget cuts, the meeting the top administration about why they’re making budget cuts, and the meeting with the athletic department to figure out how they got a new stipend while everyone else was dealing with these damn budget cuts. 

One student could wait. For now, at least. 

* * *

The second time, it was completely incidental.

Lorraine, his second in command, was out with the flu, which meant any truant behavior had to go through him for the remainder of the day. There were the usual detention assignments; one for truancy, a couple for smoking in the boys locker room, and a very heated meeting with the head of the athletic department after it was found out that the boys who were caught smoking were members of the football team. After taking a melatonin and finishing up the last couple emails of the day (the PTA wanted to ban Becky Albertalli books again, which meant he had to go to bat for the librarians again, and deal with the usual rumors about his sexuality _again_ ) his secretary knocked on the door. 

“Tom, we’ve got one more.”

Emma Nolan shuffled silently into the room. Her head was hung long, and her shoulders were bunched up so tightly her shoulders practically reached her ears. Her backpack hung dejectedly over one shoulder, a guitar case clenched tightly in her right hand. Tom gently took the detention slip from her shaking hand. 

“Emma… Nolan? Right? Why don’t you take a seat.”

Wordlessly Emma slunk into the folding chair opposite him. Tom squinted as he tried to decipher the messy pen scrawl without his reading glasses. 

“So, you were in the auditorium… during free period? You know you’re supposed to be in the class you had beforehand, right? It’s considered cutting if you leave.”

“I know.” Emma stared intently at her lap. “I know that, it’s just…. I wanted to practice my guitar? And usually Ms. Smith writes me a note so I can use the band room but she’s out today and the acapella club wanted it for practice so I wasn’t really sure where to go. So I guess I just ended up…” her voice faded away as she gave a silent shrug.

Tom rubbed the corners of his eyes and pulled the slip in closer. “It also says someone else might’ve been with you.” 

Emma’s head shot up instantly. Her face was white with terror. “No there wasn’t.” 

“This is just according to Mr. Briggs. He says he heard the back door slam just as he came in. He thinks you might be covering for someone.”

“No no no, he must’ve been confused.” Her glasses had clouded up, and she was vigorously rubbing the lenses between her faded flannel. “Mr. Hawkins, you have to believe me. I was the only one there.” 

There was now an apparent tremble in her voice, and her face had gone from white to blotchy red. She seemed to be on the verge of tears. So Tom pauses. He thinks back to the email sent all those months ago, and all that was left unsaid. He was sensing a pattern. Time for a new approach. 

“You said you play the guitar? What kind of music do you like?” 

“Oh, um...” 

Tom could practically see a huge question mark hanging over the girl’s head.

“Uh, I guess, a lot of different stuff, I guess. I grew up with Bruce Springsteen, and uh, Cat Stevens. Oldies. But I also like Lucy Dacus and Teagan and Sarah. And-“ she paused for a moment, as if contemplating whether she wanted to go further or not. “My, uh, friend got me the sheet music to this show she really likes. Well, it’s like a play but with music. So I’ve been playing that mostly. The acoustic versions, I mean. It’s called, uh, Fun House?”

“Do you mean Fun Home?” This definitely perked up Tom’s attention.

“Oh yeah.” Emma blushed deeply, as if she had just given something very personal away. “That one.”

Tom tried to temper his excitement. Showtunes were the one topic he excelled at, even if it was often to the annoyance. Finding another showtune affictianato in Edgewater was a near impossible task, like trying to choose between Patina Miller and Ben Vereen. “You know, I saw the touring cast when they came to Indianapolis two years ago. Brilliant show, that score is truly something. It there a particular song you like the most?”

“Mmm hmm.” The tension in her shoulders seemed to decrease just a bit. “The ‘telephone wire’ song, you know when she’s talking to her dad for the last time? And she’s really hoping they’ll connect, but, um, they never really do. That, um…” Her voice trailed off again, and her eyes grew moist. She quickly wiped them on a baggy sleeve. “I, uh, just like playing that one. I guess.” 

It was tempting to push forward at this point and ask what actually happened between Emma and her parents. But the teenager’s eyes were now back on her lap, and a notification lit up Tom’s phone.

_PTA Meeting in 5- Discussion of Abstinence Only Curriculum_

Streisand help him.

“Mr. Hawkins?”

“Hmm?” Tom closed his cell discreetly.

“Am I in trouble?”

Tom sighed. He was hoping for this to be their big breakthrough moment. But if he pressed her before she was ready, she’d shut down completely, and he’d be back at square one. Time to cut the cord. For now, at least. “This is your first offense, I’ll let you off with a warning for now. But Emma-“

Her eyes were dictionary definition of anxiety. Tread carefully, Hawkins, tread carefully.

“If there’s anything want to share with me… or you just want to talk, please don’t hesitate. My door is always open.”

She gives him a small nod before she leaves. Tom spends the rest of the day with a bad feeling in his stomach. He tried, no doubt about it, but he fell miserably short of his goal. He’d have to check in on her again sometime soon. Absolutely. Definitely. For sure.

They don’t speak for the rest of the year.

* * *

The third time, it’s pure pandemonium.

It’s a soggy March morning when he wakes up to an email notification tab in the hundreds. The first is in all caps, from none other than from the head of the PTA herself, Elena Greene. 

_ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED WE WILL FIGHT THIS TO THE END PLEASE RESPOND IMMEDIATELY thank you God Bless :)_

The second was from Lorraine. It said to call her. 

“Tom, we have a potential disaster on our hands if we don’t act now. Appease the PTA, just say you’re gonna handle this thing.”

Tom sandwiched his phone between his shoulder and ear while he tried to pour what was about to be the first of many coffees this morning. “I’m sorry, but I’ve scrolled through over eighty emails for the last half hour and I still don’t have a faintest idea of what’s going on. It’s been mostly angry parents throwing Bible quotes at me. One of them sent me a link to InfoWars.”

There was a heavy, prolonged sigh on the other end of the line.

“It’s the Nolan girl. Emma Nolan, she’s a senior this year. She wants to bring her girlfriend to prom.”

Tom blinked a few times, allowing the information to settle over him. For a moment, he felt bizarrely relieved by it all. Emma Nolan having a girlfriend definitely explained quite a lot. This could be the breakthrough point he was hoping for with her. Then the relief quickly turned to anger. “I’m sorry, this is what all the commotion is about? Whoever this girl wishes to bring as her date is no one else's business.”

“The PTA thinks it's theirs. I got a very angry voicemail from Mrs. Greene at five this morning. According to her Emma broke school protocol when she passed in her ticket form. She was just planning on banning her, but then the grandmother complained, so she decided to pull rank and get the rest of the parents her side. They’re waiting on you to make the final decision.”

Tom rubbed his temples and began to pace back and forth across his kitchen tiles. “First of all, I am not the spokesman for the PTA. I’m the spokesman for this school. And last time I checked, people answer to me, not the other way around.”

“We are a public school with no budget Tom! If we lose the PTA’s backing that means no new lockers, no discounted lunches, we might even have to cut some of our after school programs-”

“You mean like our arts program? I think that’s already a lost cause.”

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. Lorraine’s voice came through gently this time. “Tom, I don’t want them to start any rumors about you again.”

There was a brief, brutal second where Tom fought the temptation to chuck his phone out the window. This damn town. Sometimes it seemed like it was about to swallow him whole. It wasn’t enough that he was the first black principal this district’s had in god knows how many years. It wasn’t enough that every policy and positive change he had wanted to make had bombarded, blackwalled, and challenged at every possible turn. It wasn’t enough that since the day he came to Edgewater he had begun to feel more and more powerless by the day. But to pry into his personal life? Into a student’s personal life? Was there any sense of decency left?

Tom Hawkins went into high school education hoping to change it for the better. Instead, it was like he had never left. 

He sighed deeply and rubbed the ever deepening crease between his brows. “Don’t concern yourself with that Lorraine. That’ll be my problem to deal with. Send out a school wide email, tell them we’re sorting out the details now. And then…” 

He took a deep breath. “I’ll sort out the rest.”

* * *

Emma Nolan was not in her third period class. 

She wasn’t in the gym, or the cafeteria, and when Tom stopped by the senior hallway all he could find was her locker, where the word “DIKE” had been scralled across in black sharpie. Tom made a quick detour to the head janitor to insure it would be cleaned off by the end of the day before continuing his search. He had almost run himself ragged by the time he made his way to where the the regular brick and mortar section of the school met with a series of connecting trailers (another unfinished project they didn’t have the money for). 

This was where all the things the school board would rather forget about went; special ed classes, the ESL program. A closet filled with old paperbacks that had been banned years ago (Catcher in the Rye for language, Of Mice and Men for a “negative depiction of farm life”). And finally, the band room. It was a tight space, with a little over a dozen instrument cases piled next to a ramshackle piano. The whole place smelled like mildew and had a dull, vaguely yellow glow to it from the poor fluorescent lighting. And in the middle of it all was Emma, sitting numbly in a discarded chair. Her guitar case lay unopened by her side.

Tom gently rapped on the door frame. “Hello. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

She barely moved a muscle. “I’m so stupid.”

“What?” Tom quickly entered, scanning the room for another chair. “No, Emma, please, I was hoping we could talk about this-”

“Mr. Hawkins, if I knew people were going to get so angry I would’ve never done it.” 

Tom found another folding chair leaning against the side of the piano and unfurled it next to her’s, keeping a respectful distance. 

“-But I just figured, well, it’s our senior year so we should try to make it count, and have a good time for once, and… I don’t know… not care what everyone else thinks. I had no idea they’d be so mad about the form. I just though, for once, they’d leave me alone…” Tears were now rolling down her cheeks. “So yeah, I was stupid. My own parents couldn’t even accept me. I’m not sure why I thought a whole school would. I just feel bad, ‘cause I brought _her_ into it-” 

She fades off again, but Tom doesn’t interject. Not quite yet. Instead he takes out a tissue from his coat pocket and passes it to her. She silently accepts it.

“They’re thinking of canceling the whole prom now. At least that’s what people are telling me. Maybe I should just not go at all, then maybe that would make everybody happy.”

Tom sighs and leans forward in his chair. “Emma, I owe you an apology.”

The girl looked up, startled. “What?” 

“I can only imagine how tough it’s been for you these past couple of years. You’re a good kid, and you’ve got a heck of a stiff upper lip. That’s probably why you’ve fallen under the radar for so long.” He paused. “You know you haven’t done anything wrong, right?”

Emma gave a choked exhale. “It doesn’t matter if I’ve really done anything wrong or not. It only matters if everyone else thinks so.” 

“Never keep stock in the opinions of small minded people. Trust me on that. And the PTA doesn’t have the final decision on this matter, I do. And I will do whatever it takes to make sure you and your date can go to prom.”

Emma blushed deeply and looked away. “You really don’t have to go out of your way like that Mr. Hawkins.”

“Emma, this is not going out of my way. This is my job. I’m going to call the school district and set up a meeting with your grandmother. I’m sure this can be figured out in a couple of days.”

And for the first time, Emma cautiously looked up. She gave a small smile. “Thank you, Mr. Hawkins.”

“Now,” Tom stood up and refolded his chair. “This place is getting a little dreary, don’t you think? What’s your next period class. I can escourt you there now.”

“Oh.” Her smile suddenly faded. “It’s lunch, actually. I figured, maybe I can just stay here…”

“Do you have your lunch with you?”

Emma nodded, and Tom felt a small burst of relief that they wouldn’t have to stop by her locker before the janitor could get there first. “Come to my office. You can eat there as long as you like. On one condition, of course.”

Emma raise a pale eyebrow as she gripped her guitar case tightly by the handle.

“I’d love to hear you play. I’ve never heard showtunes on a guitar before, it must be quite an illuminating experience.”

Emma pushed back her hair with a shaky hand and gave a small grin. “It’s not as hard as it sounds, sometimes you just need the right cords.”

* * *

There were still times, of course, when Tom looked back and thought to all the missed opportunities he’d let slip away. He did that with everything; relationships, careers, tickets to shows he never got to see. It had become so routine it was almost too late before he realized he was doing the same to his students.

Three times. Three times he could’ve reached out to Emma Nolan. Three times he chose to look the other way.

But then a fourth time. One to fix it all. One to get some decency back to this school he cared too damn much about to leave. To try, at least.

The fourth time was the one that mattered.


End file.
